New Releases For The Week Of July 4th, 2021–Part 3

A dead body. A missing coma patient. And a crazy chicken. Will the murderer be caught before someone else ends up dead?

Lucy Fong is keeping the family private investigation firm afloat while her estranged mother is in a coma. When she stumbles onto a dead body in the shop next door, Lucy is once again drawn into another murder investigation.

Who is the dead man, and why does he have a crazy chicken in his knapsack? How did he get inside the secured building owned by Lucy’s family? And to add to her worries, her mother—along with the hospital bed—goes missing.

It’s a race against time to find the murderer and her mother before danger catches up with Lucy. Join Lucy and her friends in this fast-paced cozy mystery. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

When Piper Ashwell’s latest case involves a murder victim killed in fire, the smoke at the crime scene renders Piper’s psychic abilities useless—and at the worst time possible. The newest member of the Weltunkin PD is a total nonbeliever.

Officer O’Reilly is too levelheaded to think anything Piper does stems from psychic abilities, and that doubt is affecting Piper in a big way. But her partner, Mitchell Brennan, is convinced Piper’s foresight is the only thing that can stop this serial arsonist from striking again.

Piper is playing with fire, and if her senses don’t cooperate, she might be off this case before the killer can light his next match.

Fans of Joanne Fluke and Victoria Laurie will enjoy this psychic cozy mystery series.

Scroll up and grab your copy today! (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

Halloween is just around the corner in Golden Hills and mischief is in the air. When a rash of mysterious cat burglaries turn murderous, our favorite sleuths, Hannah and Razzy are back on the case with Rudy.

The crew will have to sort through a tangled mess of deception and false clues to find the truth before someone else gets hurt.
The stakes have never been higher and time is running out. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

The gripping new thriller with a difference from internationally bestselling author Lisa Stone

An isolated cottage…
After losing her job and boyfriend, Jan Hamlin is in desperate need of a fresh start. So she jumps at the chance to rent a secluded cottage on the edge of Coleshaw Woods.
 
A tap at the window…
Very quickly though, things take a dark turn. At night, Jan hears strange noises, and faint taps at the window. Something, or someone, is out there.
 
A forest that hides many secrets…
Jan refuses to be scared off. But whoever is outside isn’t going away, and it soon becomes clear that the nightmare is only just beginning… (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook

Mabel plans to bring the thrills of volunteering to the masses—if she doesn’t get the ax first.

After losing her job of twenty-three years, Mabel decides to launch what will surely be a glamorous new career as an author. Having recently inherited her late grandmother’s house, she has the freedom to spend time volunteering and writing about her experiences.

Unfortunately, Mabel’s plans soon go off the rails. Her inheritance comes with decades of clutter, an overgrown lot, a dog named Barnacle, and a neighbor with an ax to grind. And her first assignment as a Medicine Spring Historical Society volunteer is to lead a tour of the Sauer Mansion, locally known as the “Ax Murder House,” site of a notorious 1930’s double homicide.

As Mabel shepherds her tour group through the house, it appears history’s repeating itself when she stumbles across a body in the parlor. Finding herself on the suspect list, Mabel scrambles to figure out who swung the fatal ax. In the process, she can’t help being drawn into investigating the unsolved historic murders, teamed up with PI John Bigelow, a man she isn’t sure she can trust. With an ax murderer on the loose, will Mabel be next? (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

A dog walker discovers the body of a young homeless man in Hunsbury Hill Country Park. It carries a message: ‘your move’.

Part-time grave digger and cab driver Will Peters knows just what it’s like living on the streets and vows the young man’s death will not be brushed aside during the mayor’s re-election campaign. Forging a relationship with local detectives, Will gets creative and acquires information any way he can. With the help of ex-con Birdie Fox and elderly hard-nosed trade unionist Stanley Kipper, Will sets about bringing the killer to justice.

But as the case unfolds, and the death toll rises, the police uncover corruption on a massive scale, and it appears the murders are far more personal than anyone could have possibly imagined.

Where There’s a Will is the first book in an exciting new crime series from Amazon #1 Bestseller Linda Coles

(Will Peters first appeared as Billy Peters in Hey You, Pretty Face, a DC Jack Rutherford story set during the winter of 1999.) (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

In the dead of winter, when the town of Cliff Haven seems practically frozen . . . 

. . . Tango classes may be the key to heating things up. 

It’s been months since the mishap at the theater, and Ellie is still reeling. 

Between exercising her magic and coming to terms with another family member disappearing from her life, Ellie wants nothing more than things to get back to normal. 

Whatever that is. 

When she comes across a body and a man standing over it holding a knife, the case looks pretty open and shut. 

Until it doesn’t. 

With so many suspects, will Ellie be able to solve the crime? Or will a murderer go free? 

Join Ellie, Penelope, Xander, and the whole Cliff Haven gang in the fourth book of the Magical Mane Mystery series.  (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

The first three charming, witty, and joyfully quirky novels in New York Times bestselling author Lynne Truss’s Constable Twitten Mysteries.

A Shot in the Dark:
In 1957, Inspector Steine rather enjoys his life as a policeman in the seaside British town of Brighton. As far as he’s concerned, the town has no criminals, which means no crime, and no stress. But much to Steine’s irritation, there’s a new constable in town?the keen and clever Constable Twitten, who sees patterns in small, meaningless burglaries and insists on the strange notion that perhaps all the crime has not been cleared out quite as effectively as Steine thinks.

Worse yet, some of Constable Twitten’s ideas could be correct: when renowned theater critic A. S. Crystal arrives in Brighton to tell the detective the secret he knows about the still-unsolved Aldersgate Stick-Up Case of 1945, he’s shot dead in his seat.

The Man That Got Away:
Just weeks after the startling events of A Shot In the Dark, in the beach town of Brighton, music is playing and guests are sunning themselves, when a young man is found dead, dripping blood, in a deck chair.

Constable Twitten of the Brighton Police Force has a hunch that the fiendish murder may be connected to a notorious nightspot, but his captain and his colleagues are?as ever?busy with other more important issues. Inspector Steine is being conned into paying for the honor of being featured at the Museum of Wax, and Sergeant Brunswick is trying (and failing) to get the attention of the distraught Brighton Belles who found the body. As the case twists and turns, Constable Twitten must find the murderer and convince his colleagues that there’s an evil mastermind behind Brighton’s climbing crime rate.

Murder by Milk Bottle
In the wake of two extremely high-profile murder cases, and with the summer of 1957 finally winding down, Constable Twitten is eagerly anticipating a quiet spell at work. But his hoped-for rest is interrupted when he and his colleagues find a trio of bodies, all murdered with the same unusual weapon: a milk bottle.

The three victims are seemingly unconnected-a hardworking patrolman, a would-be beauty queen, and a catty BBC radio personality-so Constable Twitten, Sergeant Brunswick, and Inspector Steine are baffled. But with Brighton on high alert and the local newspaper churning out stories of a killer on the loose, the police trio is determined to solve the case and catch the killer. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

A thrilling small-town mystery romance.

Ruby Parish is a self-described “cat-loving, small-town librarian who owns too many dresses and romance novels.” So when a death happens in the library before her very eyes, she has no idea how to cope with it. The investigation quickly reveals that what seemed like an accident was actually a murder. And Ruby finds herself at the center of the investigation as Detective Jack Blaine’s sole person of interest.

Ruby’s attention is torn between the investigation and the alluring detective working the case. Her best friend and attorney Amber Callum disapproves. But she soon has bigger problems: a dangerous stalker who demands that she confess to the murder that she didn’t commit.

With the stalker’s identity a complete mystery, even to Detective Blaine, Ruby begins an investigation of her own, one that turns her from a quiet librarian to an amateur snoop in an instant. She finds clues that cast suspicion on the people around her, and she gets lost in a fog of evidence and betrayal. All the while, Detective Blaine’s true intentions remain uncertain. Is Ruby a person of interest in more ways than one? The tension between them sizzles as the case slowly unfolds.

This steamy novel is equal parts romance and mystery, sure to please fans of either genre. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

Autumn in Pleasant Hills, Texas is about sipping pumpkin spice lattes, costume contests, and filling trick or treat bags, but not this year. Because something wicked this way wags!

As southern and sassy Steely Lamarr, her chatty Chihuahua, and the Scrubadub gang organize the annual pet costume contest, they hit a wall when the contest judge—the town librarian—winds up dead. Between the pages of the beloved woman’s journal, Steely discovers the quirky librarian may have met an untimely death through a connection on a dating app.

As the president of the Citizens on the Watch, Steely believes it’s her civic duty, along with her motley crew, to assist the ever-so-hunky Officer Jackson and the Buckleville PD to bring a killer to justice.

Can Steely figure out who murdered the librarian and keep herself out of the crosshairs from a venomous villain?

♥Praise for the 1st editions of the Sleuthin’ in Boots series♥

“Lighthearted, funny, and oh so Texan!” ~Goodreads

“A fun, fresh read!” ~Amazon Reviewer

“A hilarious wacky page turner!” ~Amazon Reviewer

★Publisher’s note: This is the 2nd edition of How to Leash a Thief. Several changes were made from the 1st edition for clarity purposes and we’ve given it a new cover. Many readers of the 1st edition stated it read like a “cozy” mystery. Although it does contain many cozy mystery elements, we at Pigasus Publications do not want to mislead readers. Our readers’ happiness is top priority. How to Leash a Thief does not contain explicit sex or excessive violence. Some cozy mystery fans might enjoy the story. But we want to inform readers, the book does contain minimal use of curse words and sexual innuendos. Thank you for your interest! (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

Welcome to Bushwhack, New Mexico: home to tourists, the great outdoors, and murder…
The Killer Outdoors (Book 1)
The Hiker’s Guide To Murder (Book 2)
Raiders of the Campsite (Book 3)

THE KILLER OUTDOORS

Tourist season has hit Bushwhack and Andie Sullivan–owner of Sullivan’s Adventure Company–is ready for her town to fill up with city slickers, snotty teens, and the dollars she needs to keep her business afloat. After her messy divorce from Bucky Gunn–local celebrity rafting guide and Sullivan’s main competition, she can use all the help she can get. With all her guided tours booked, it finally seems lady luck is on her side.

But then Bucky is found dead. Not great.

And she’s the prime murder suspect. Double not great.

Being framed for murder sucks worse than a rabid chipmunk bite. Andie’s determined to clear her name, and this time her survival training skills won’t be used to fetch an ice pack. But how long can she stay one step ahead of a killer before she becomes the final victim?

THE HIKER’S GUIDE TO MURDER

Hiking the Kindling National Forest is a birthday tradition for the Sullivan siblings—pitching camp, roasting s’mores… a dead body? Not exactly the fun party outdoor guide Andie Sullivan planned for her brother, Kyle. Welp.

When the body is identified as a local who worked at the parks department, Andie decides to put her clue-solving skills to use. Winter tourism is at stake, and if word gets out that Bushwhack has another killer on the loose, she can kiss that sweet revenue goodbye.

Easier said than done. Meanwhile, Sheriff Zac Mars is neck and neck with her on uncovering clues, proving solving the latest murder in town is harder than powering through a mountain bike tour on an energy bar breakfast. Racing against the clock, Andie must uncover evidence to make her mountain community safe for ski bunnies. But as one new plot twist turns into another dead body, Andie learns not everyone likes meddling civilian sleuths. If she’s not fast enough, the killer may find her before she finds them.

RAIDERS OF THE CAMPSITE

Camping for spring break should be a piece of cake for outdoor guide Andie Sullivan. She has her best friend and the sheriff tagging along as chaperones for the Wilderness Explorers. It should be all S’mores and ghost stories…but then Vivian is attacked and they discover a corpse.

Dang. The campsite went up in smoke.

With everything at stake, Andie must find answers about the attack—she has to dig deep into a community she’s called home since birth by asking all the right questions, sometimes at not the right time. As she tracks down clues to a suspect, Andie stumbles on a secretive treasure hunting group in Bushwhack. But one wrong move and Andie could become her own buried treasure. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

The second boxed set in the award-winning Bad Hair Day cozy mystery series!

Meet Marla Shore, a Florida hairstylist and salon owner with a knack for styling hair and solving crimes. In this trio of adventures, Marla helps her ex-spouse solve a murder, searches for her missing pet-loving neighbor, and stumbles across the body of a rival hairdresser.

BODY WAVE – Book 4
In a story braided with unexpected twists and curls, salon owner Marla Shore takes on a role as nurse’s aide for wealthy Miriam Pearl. While Marla snoops into the elderly matriarch’s affairs, her boyfriend, Detective Dalton Vail, is afraid that the only affair she’ll snag is with her ex-spouse, Stan. Juggling work at her salon, crime solving, and two amorously inclined males, Marla fights a race against time to save Stan before the dashing detective nails him for murder. RONE Award Winner!

“Ms. Cohen’s plot has more twists than a French braid, and Marla is a shear delight.” Joanne Fluke, author of the Hannah Swensen mysteries

HIGHLIGHTS TO HEAVEN – Book 5
Hairstylist and amateur sleuth Marla Shore lands a case close to home when her animal-loving neighbor—a man aptly named Goat—disappears, leaving his pets alone and a dead body in his master bedroom. Even more disturbing is the pattern of highlights Marla notes in the victim’s hair. She recognizes the signature technique of her former mentor, master stylist Cutter Corrigan. Soon she’s untangling clues that link Goat, Cutter, and the unsavory pet fur trade to her own past. Someone at her former beauty school has a hair-raising secret worth killing to keep.

“Full of twists and turns, great characters, and an interesting setting. Who could ask for more?” Denise Swanson, author of the Scumble River mystery series

DIED BLONDE – Book 6
Hairstylist Marla Shore stumbles over her rival’s body in the meter room behind their competing salons. When her boyfriend, hunky Detective Dalton Vail, asks for her help in solving the murder, she jumps on the case. The stakes rise when the victim’s trusted psychic warns her that someone she loves is in danger. Her investigation takes her to a smoky bingo parlor, a spooky town run by spiritualists, and sunny Delray Beach. But what scares Marla the most is her relationship with Dalton that takes a surprising turn.

“Nancy Cohen has penned another follicle raising frolic with a wry twist of romance.” P.J. Parrish, NY Times Bestselling Author

If you enjoy murder and mayhem with a touch of humor and romance, you’ll love the Bad Hair Day cozy mystery series. Get your copy and start reading now! (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

Random Notes,
One-Word Messages,
And a Puzzle that Might Be Too Hard to Solve.

Wanda Warner loves word games, but when she and her friends find random words stuck to their windshields, even her skills are challenged. A rising star reporter has disappeared and the newspaper office is trashed. Could the words be clues as to why?

And can Wanda decipher the meaning of the complete message before it’s too late to matter? (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

With summer coming to an end, the cozy seaside town of Oceanview slowly begins to wind down from its busy season. Tourist exit and cool air enters, brining along changing leaves, homecoming, and shorter, quieter days. Even the dusty boardwalk and past-its-prime Wharf seems ready for a rest.
All except for Tyler Salazar. Relatively new in town, his upscale floral design business is busier than ever with a deluge of fall weddings and events. Things seem to be going well, until one of his more finicky and demanding clients vocally trashes his work and threatens him with a lawsuit in front of the whole town. It is one of the most embarrassing things to happen to him since moving here.
That is, until the angry client is found dead only a few hours later… with one of Tyler’s vases as the murder weapon.
Now a prime suspect, and those in charge pushing for and open-and-shut case to save the towns reputation, it’s up to Tyler and his boyfriend Matthew (with a little help from their whodunnit loving octogenarian landladies), to find the real killer and clear his name.
Otherwise he’ll be the one closed for the season. Permanently. (Amazon)

Editions available: Kindle, Paperback

Stars Hollow Paranormal Mysteries: Book 5

A vacation designed for two. I do believe that is called a honeymoon, and they are universally known to be fun and romantic. Try to imagine it now – a crystal-clear lake that sparkles in the sunlight, a beach with a grassy park, jet skiing, lying on a private dock under a bright sky. There are woods running through the town, so maybe hiking, too. Gift shopping is always a must. Oh, and unbelievably massive ice cream served in equally massive cones. Just gotta have the ice cream!

That is normal people honeymoon, though. You know, the kind humans get to have.

For Jasper and me, this trip we are on includes a couple business matters. The first, if you recall, involves a bit of information Miguel revealed just before… Well, just before he lost his head. This is massively important information as well, so not something we can simply set aside for later, and as luck would have it our vacation is in the exact town where we can deal with this issue.

Sounds like fate to me. Hopefully a sign that we can get ahead of Samantha and Leo once and for all.

Anyway, back to the point. Here Jasper and I are in McCall, a lakefront town in Idaho, where we hope to locate a Light Witch while also getting personal time in. There is also the second task I mentioned, which is actually a private thing concerning my father’s remains. But that second matter shouldn’t be too much of a problem, barely a blip in our plans.

Except what happens when the magical community in the town of McCall turns up missing? Light Witch included. What happens when the reason why they are missing draws the entire honeymoon to an abrupt halt, making it near impossible to step outside without being stalked? I am not even sure we can get back to Stars Hollow safely.

This honeymoon is turning into an unexpected full-out job, and one that means life or death. Worse yet, the job cannot be completed without a coven. Our only hope right now is to locate the Light Witch… or someone else. At least one magical person must be out there who can help save the missing community.

Maybe you guys have an idea of what we can do. Our plans are running into dead ends everywhere.

~*~

Note to Readers
Robyn Salem is on the autism spectrum. In fact, she is based on me. My own life and backstory have been used to create hers. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

New York City, 1954.

Two women are found murdered. One is Lorraine Quinn, Cantor Gold’s most recent one-night-stand. The other is political power broker and aspiring New York socialite Eve Garraway, a regular client of Cantor’s stolen art trade.

Police nemesis, Lieutenant Norm Huber, wants to pin the murders on Cantor, send her to prison, and put her in the electric chair. He’ll get evidence on her any way he can. Into this cauldron of danger and death come two other women, each with ties to Cantor’s past. One hates her until passion intervenes; the other harbors darkly hidden feelings.

Set during the earliest stirrings of the Homosexual Rights Movement, Cantor begins to question her own tenuous identity, and the trade-offs she must make to get what she wants.

Cantor Gold, dapper butch art thief and smuggler for whom survival is everything, must now grapple with two fronts: surviving the shifting sands of the criminal underworld, and navigating the changing tides of society. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

The lives of the three Emery sisters were changed forever when Alex, eleven at the time, found their mother drowned in the bathtub of their home. After their mother’s suicide, the girls’ father shut down emotionally, leaving Alex responsible for caring for Colleen, then eight, and little Riley, just four. Now the girls are grown and navigating different directions. Alex, a nurse, has been traveling in India and grieving her struggle to have a child; Colleen is the devoted mother of preteens in denial that her marriage is ending; and Riley has been leading what her sisters imagine to be the dream life of a successful model in New York City. Decades may have passed, but the unresolved trauma of their mother’s death still looms over them, creating distance between the sisters.

Then, on a March night, a storm rages near the coast of northeastern Massachusetts. Alex sits alone in an old farmhouse she inherited from a stranger. The lights are out because of the storm; then, an unexpected knock at the door. When Alex opens it, her beautiful younger sister stands before her. Riley has long been estranged from their family, prompting Colleen to hire the private investigator from whom they’d been awaiting news. Comforted by her unexpected presence, Alex holds back her nagging questions: How had Riley found her? Wouldn’t the dirt roads have been impassable in the storm? Why did Riley insist on disappearing back into the night?

After her mysterious visitation, Alex and Colleen are determined to reconcile with Riley and to face their painful past, but the closer they come to finding their missing sister, the more they fear they’ll only be left with Riley’s secrets. An unforgettable story about grief, love, and what it means to be haunted, The Ocean in Winter marks the debut of a remarkable new voice in fiction. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Audiobook